The car came to a halt in front of my high school, and I could already see Ned standing next to the entrance patiently waiting for me.
"You have everything?" Tony, still keeping his hands on the wheel, turned to me.
I gave him a grin. "Yep, everything's in my backpack." Except for my phone... I didn't have my phone because like I had assumed, it was destroyed. Just touching the shattered glass on the screen was a hazard of cutting myself, so grabbing it with a pair of gloves, I had slipped them on and carefully picked up from the ground floor and straight into the trash. I may or may not have gotten a bit teary-eyed at seeing the end of my phone's life.
"Awesome. Happy will pick you up after school. If you need anything during the day, give me a call. I'll come immediately." Yeah... with my non-existent phone. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, I chanted in my head. If something were to happen, I decided to use Ned's phone to call.
I nodded. "Okay, bye Mr. Stark! See you later." I got out of the car and shifted the backpack on my shoulders. By its packed size and crazy weight, I was pretty sure I had a Freshman backpack, even though I wasn't even a Freshman anymore. Fortunately, I had superstrength, so it didn't bother me that much.
"Hey, Ned! How was your weekend?" I smiled as I strolled up to him, my hands on the straps of my backpack.
"Good." Ned grinned back at me, but after a second, his grin faltered and he looked at me with narrowed eyes. "Are you okay?"
I frowned and looked down at my clothes, making sure I wasn't wearing something inside-out or wore mismatched socks. Nothing seemed amiss. I said, "Yeah, why?"
"Because, I don't know." He shrugged, keeping an eye on me as we made our way inside the school. "You seem different. Maybe it's just me though."
Am I acting weird? I chewed on my lip and asked, "Different how?"
Instead of answering my question, he asked me, "How much sleep did you get last night?"
"Nine hours. Mr. Stark told me to go to bed early. I didn't think I was going to fall asleep, but in the end, I did pretty quickly actually. Why, do I look like I got a real night of sleep?"
"Yeah," Ned mused, "But it's more than that."
"What do you mean, more?" I pressed, curious.
"Did you eat how much you're supposed to be eating, with your fast metabolism?" He asked instead.
"Yes, Socrates." I rolled my eyes at how he was always answering with another question. "Would you please finally tell me what you mean?"
Ned shrugged again. "I guess you seem less tense. And you're not as pale as you used to be."
The bell rang, and we hurried our way towards our class, so we wouldn't be marked as late. Before we could even get half-way there, Flash appeared in front of us with his arms crossed. His friends stood behind him, one of them chewing gum that every pop made me cringe and the other one desperately needing a haircut as he had to sweep his hair aside every few seconds.
Flash spoke, "Hey Peter. I haven't seen you in a while. Lucky me. I didn't have to set my eyes on your ugly face."
My mood dampened, and my hands curled into fists. "What do you want, Flash?"
"Nothing, nothing. Just some fun." The side of his mouth twitched in whatever he had anticipated for us. By this time, the hallway had been emptied as all the students had made their way to class already.
"Can't we schedule whatever you have planned later? We've got a class to get to," I remarked, trying to walk around him. Ned shot me a surprised look at my snarky response and followed me. His friends stepped in our way and crossed their arms, causing us to halt. Great. If we didn't go now, Ned and I would be sent back to the office to get a tardy pass. If we had three of those, we would get a detention, and I already had one. Currently, however, I was not looking for one and was going to avoid it at all costs, especially because if the school contacted my guardian to report the detention, they wouldn't be able to reach May because she still hadn't been found, and then what? Who would they contact? Mr. Stark? No way.
"No, I don't think so." Flash turned to Ned and grinned at him. "Hey, what's your name again? Fred? Red? Or just plain idiot? Oh no, no. I've got it. Chunky monkey! Or do you like fattie better?" He did not just go there. I looked back and saw Ned's face that showed shame and hurt at being picked on for his weight. My jaw hardened as I turned back to Flash. Sure, he bullied me all the time, but now that he bullied Ned, he crossed a line. How dare he?
I let go of my anger, snapping at him. "Do you hate yourself that much that you need to project your feelings of hate towards yourself on others? Leave us alone before something happens that you will regret."
Flash fake-pouted beside them, "You wound me, Parker. I thought you loved our sessions throughout the school day." My mind ruffled through every time he punched, kicked, or cursed at me and how I never fought back, always taking the hits.
"Well, obviously you thought wrong." I bit out the words I had always kept in. "I'm not surprised though, as it is you after all doing the thinking."
His mouth fell open as he gaped at me, at a lack of words. His brain probably couldn't comprehend that I just lashed out at him rather than staying quiet and letting him do whatever he wanted to. I had enough. I was not going to let us be bullied anymore. It's time I stood up for us.
His eyes narrowed as he growled, "What did you just say?"
I tilted my head in mock confusion. "Oh, I'm sorry. Let me dumb it down for you. I called you stupid."
"You're going to pay for that!" Flash yelled before he swung a punch aimed at my face. I pushed Ned backward, so he wouldn't get caught up in the fight, and grabbed Flash's fist mid-air, pulled him forward, and finished off with kneeing him, causing him to drop to the floor in loud groans.
One of his friends, the one who was chewing gum, came at me next. I didn't think he had ever been in a fist-fight before because I didn't even have to duck out of the way as his punch completely missed me. I kicked his stomach, throwing him into the lockers with a loud bang. I winced, realizing that the noise may draw attention.
And it indeed did. Not a second later, a teacher strode out of her room behind me, head swiveling to try to spot the source of the sound. As soon as she saw Flash, the rest of his crew, and me in the hall, she yelled, "Hey! What are you boys doing?!"
I held up my hands but the kid with long-hair had other plans. My focus was on the teacher who was behind us, and although my spidey sense demanded that I move out of the way, I knew that a normal kid would not be able to evade whatever was flying towards me, a fist, a leg, or an object, without being aware that it's happening since I was facing the opposite direction.
With a grimace, I let it hit me, pitching me forward. My knees hit the floor hard, but I wasn't hurt.
"Hey! Stop it!" The teacher sprinted to us and behind her was the school resource officer.
Shit.
~ ~ ~
Ned and I were sitting on one side of the principal's office, while Flash and his friends were sitting on the other. After the principal delivered the news that I would get detention for a week while Flash, his friends, and Ned would go free (because Ned was a bystander and the others were 'victims'), the principal had left a moment ago to talk to our guardians. At least I wasn't being suspended.
While looking at Flash's tear-streaked face, I started feeling regret for lashing out. I shouldn't have done that. It was wrong of me to do so, not when I had an unfair advantage.
Why did I even do that? In the past, I had taken their hits without much complaint, but all of a sudden, I was fighting back. Why? Why did I do that?
Ned leaned over to my side and whispered, "Can I just say, what you did back there was hella badass."
My eyes widened. "Ned!"
"It's true! You were like bam bam bam, and they dropped." He motioned with his arms. "I mean, you caught his punch mid-air! That was so cool. Can we do that more often? Well, as long as you don't get caught."
"Ned! We are literally sitting in the principal's office right now because of what I did. You're supposed to be mad at me," I whispered back to him.
"Mad? Mad at you? No way in hell! It was awesome!" He grinned wildly.
I opened my mouth to tell him that the chance of me going off at them again is insanely small, but the door opened and the principal stood there.
The principal seemed a bit shaken, but he said, "You guys are dismissed for the day, except for Ned. We weren't able to reach your parents, so you can go to class as you anyways weren't involved in the fight. The rest of you, your parents and, um, guardians are waiting in the office. Peter, detention will start for you tomorrow after school in G201."
I nodded, and he left again. Ned and I started standing up, and I noticed that Flash walked a semi-circle around me, so that he wouldn't be too close to me. Our eyes met for a moment before he dropped his to the floor and hurried out of the room with his friends close in tow.
As soon as the door closed again, Ned spoke my thoughts aloud, "What just happened? Is Flash scared of you?"
"No, no, no. It can't be." We looked at each other, and I said, with an eyebrow raised, "Could it, though?"
A broad smile overtook his features. "Maybe."
I shrugged, and we walked out of the room. "I guess we will see with his behavior in the next couple of days. If he still-" I cut short when I heard Mr. Stark's voice, my face paling.
"Detention? For self-defense? Since when does a person get punished for defending oneself?" I spotted Mr. Stark arguing with the principal next to the desk of the secretary. He was in his suit that he had worn this morning when he had driven me to school but now had added sunglasses to his look.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, but he hurt the others much more than they hurt him." I saw the principal try to defend his decision of giving me detention for a whole week.
Mr. Stark facepalmed himself. "But they were the aggressor, not him. If you look at the video of the camera, you see that they approached him, not the other way around. They didn't let him pass through, and that boy, what's his name again. Carreen? Colleen?"
"Eugene," the principal corrected.
"Eugene attacked him first, to which Peter obviously defended himself."
I watched with wide eyes as they went back and forth. I couldn't believe that Mr. Stark was here. How did they get his number? Shit, shit, shit. I hoped no one will see us walk out of the school. Now that's going to create some questions. Even worse, Mr. Stark had seen everything on the video, including my ability to fight. Well, I'd need a lie for that if it would ever come up in a conversation.
Ned gave me a nudge with his elbow. "So Mr. Stark's your guardian now?"
That's a good question. "Uh, temporarily, I guess?"
"That's awesome!" he said, causing me to roll my eyes. His fanboying of the Avengers was getting more and more apparent over the past week.
"Would you like to say hi to Mr. Stark?"
"Could I?" he gasped, and I bobbed my head.
I turned my attention back to Mr. Stark, who was at the moment threatening the principal, "I will take this to court."
The principal paled, and he scratched the back of his neck. "Oh, let's not be so drastic. I'm sure we can figure this out."
Mr. Stark fake-smiled. "Great. I am glad you are willing to get rid of those detentions then. He doesn't deserve them anyway."
After a moment, the principal sighed under the glare of Mr. Stark. "Okay, I'll reduce it to one detention, so he won't have them for a whole week."
Mr. Stark was about to argue, but I stepped in between them. "That's great. Thanks so much! I appreciate it." I turned to Mr. Stark, and in the meantime, the principal snuck back into his office. "Hi, Mr. Stark. Sorry for making you drive all the way back here."
He put his sunglasses off and put his hand on my shoulder. "Peter, are you okay? You hurt anywhere?"
"I'm all good." I gave him a smile.
His posture relaxed, losing all the tenseness he held a minute ago. "When I got the call, I was so worried."
"There's no need to worry. I can take care of myself." I stood up straighter.
"I know, but you don't have to."
Not knowing how to respond, I changed the subject. "So why did they actually call you? Like, how do they have your number?"
He gave me a look that said that the change of topic hadn't gone unnoticed but answered, "I told Friday to change all the phone numbers in your emergency contact to mine as, well, May is currently unavailable. And before you ask, unfortunately, no, there isn't any new news about her."
I sighed and then noticed Ned was still standing a bit behind me. "Oh, Mr. Stark. I wanted to introduce you to my friend. This is Ned."
Ned came forward and held out a hand. "Hi, I heard a lot about you from Peter, Mr. Stark." After a second, he added, "Good things, of course. No bad things. It's all good stuff. We would never, ever talk about any bad things, because you're an amazing person who-"
"Nice to meet you." Mr. Stark cut him off with a small smile on his face as he shook Ned's hand. Mr. Stark's phone pinged, and he said, "One second."
Ned mouthed to me. "This. Is. Awesome."
Mr. Stark read the notification and looked back at us. "Peter, it looks like we have to get going, so I can get to a meeting. It was nice meeting you, Ned."
I said goodbye to Ned who looked like he might faint, and Mr. Stark lead us out of the school. "Let's go home."